Tech Unboxing – ASUS Eee Pad Transformer and Keyboard Dock

I’ve been wanting to do an unboxing for a while now, but until now I haven’t had something new to unbox.

I have been (sometimes not so) patiently awaiting the release of this product for almost 16 months now. When tablets started gaining real momentum after the release of the iPad (even though tablets have been around for at least a decade), other companies started seeing what they could do. It was also around the same time that multiple companies were entering the e-reader market.

Back at Computex 2010, ASUS announced a tablet and 2 “Eee Pads”. The Tablet was an LCD e-reader with capacative touch for taking notes, and the two tablets were the original EP121, which was dockable with a keyboard/battery and running Windows 7, and an EP101TC, which was not dockable and running Windows Compact 7. There was no talk of Android at all. These devices (and other e-readers) were slated for Q4 2010 / Q1 2011 release… but never happened. This led to many emails/tweets/phonecalls to various parts of ASUS and their PR company, to no avail. There was just no firm release spec/date at that stage.

Then at CES in 2011 (Jan 4th), the devices as they are now, were unveiled. The Husband & I were both thrilled and disappointed. There was no mention of any e-readers (I was really hoping the DR-950 would be amongst them), but the tablets were great! The specs and forms had changed somewhat, but we both found one that suited us. The Husband was feeling very affectionate towards the EP121, which was now non-dockable, but had a faster processor (i5) and came with a bluetooth ‘desk set’ (keyboard/mouse). For what I was wanting a tablet for, the TF101 was exactly what I was hoping for. A dockable (which is a keyboard that doubles as an extra battery) tablet running Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). Having held one of these, I know that it’s the perfect size, even with the keyboard attached.

They were launched in the last month, and have been all but impossible to find in the stores. Thankfully we were able to secure one fairly quickly.

This is just me pulling it out of the box, and what it has. Soon I’ll be doing a video on the Android Honeycomb Tablet interface and my first ‘impressions’ on the Transformer.

Look forward to hearing your thoughts on this tablet. I have held off on an Android tablet to see what is going on with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 as well as what shape the new Windows 8 tablets will take. This was on my shortlist of tablets though to potentially replace my original iPad.

Also, what do you use to hold the camera above the desk? I could see the reflection of some sort of mount and I’d fancy one for my own videos!